Berry's slam powers Bravehearts past Suns

Sunday

Aug 10, 2014 at 10:22 PMAug 10, 2014 at 10:23 PM

By Howard Herman SPECIAL TO THE TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

PITTSFIELD — Jordan Berry admitted he didn't want to wait very long in the eighth inning.

Berry strode to the plate with the bases loaded and one out in the inning to face Pittsfield Suns reliever Alex Lagos. The Worcester hitter took the first pitch he saw and slugged it into the left field bullpen for a grand slam as the Bravehearts took a one-game lead in the best-of-three Futures Collegiate Baseball League playoff series.

Barry's grand slam broke a tie and helped the West Division champions beat the wild-card Suns, 8-4, on Sunday at Wahconah Park. The Suns reached the semifinals with an 8-2 victory at Brockton on Saturday night.

"He's a sidearm guy. I think it was a fastball, and it moved kind of weird because that's what sidearm guys do," said Berry, who was 2 for 5 with six runs batted in. "I don't like falling behind in the count against these kind of guys, so I was sitting dead red fastball on the first pitch, and he gave it to me and left it up a little bit."

The win gives the Bravehearts a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

The two teams continue the series tonight at Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field.

The game had a little bit of everything. There was a very good 5-inning pitching performance by Pittsfield's Mike Valentin Jr., normally an outfielder, who gave up two unearned runs. There was a successful steal of home by Suns runner Gary Tesch as he and Steve Dill got caught in rundowns during the first inning.

And there was an unsuccessful delayed steal of home by Ian Strom, who took off when Dill threw the ball back to his pitcher. The throw just beat Strom home, he and Dill got tangled up, and the next thing you knew, the benches emptied.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving, and Strom was ejected along with Pittsfield first baseman Brenden Geary.

"It's playoff baseball, you know what I mean. It gets a little chippy, but it's the nature of college kids," Bravehearts manager Justin Edwards said. "Sometimes things happen. It's baseball. It's the competition."

The Suns had tied the game in the sixth when leadoff hitter Dill doubled and came around to score on an RBI single by Paul Cotler off Worcester starter Kyle Slinger. Slinger gave up a single to Derek Gardella, which brought Edwards out of the dugout to make a pitching change.

Charlie Butler came on and struck out Zach Tower and got Lagos on a pop fly to shortstop Andy Lack.

Two innings later, Brendan O'Reilly and Darian Ramage reached on infield singles. An intentional walk to Mark DeYoung, who was 10 for 21 against the Suns in the regular season, set the table for Berry.

When Berry hit Lagos' pitch, he said he wasn't sure it was out of the park.

"I think I somehow backspun it. I didn't exactly get all of it," Berry said. "I looked up, and the sun was a little further to left, so I had no idea where the ball was. I just started watching the guy in left.

"I didn't know if he was going to rob it or if it was going to get over. It got over, and I was pretty excited."

While the Suns battled the division champions with a patchwork lineup that included two position players taking the mound, the wild-card team from Pittsfield will throw Holy Cross' Phil Reese tonight and Justin Finan Tuesday, if the series goes that long.

"We're going to go out there and compete every day," said Pittsfield second baseman Tad Martin, who hit a ninth-inning solo home run, "go out there and battle until the game is over — all nine innings."